Many types of companies operate online and phone-based technical support centers, often referred to as “call centers”, to provide technical support to customers and businesses. For example, customers may contact a technical support center of a company (e.g., a retailer, manufacturer, or distributor) to obtain assistance with the customer's use of products sold by the company. Further, some types of technical support centers offer support in the form of customer education, troubleshooting tasks, and service workflows.
As communication technology and computing platforms have improved, many consumers prefer to obtain technical support via an online, computer-based interface, rather than only by telephone. The use of an online, computer-based interface can enable a technical service agent to directly interact with the customer's technology (which may include direct control and intervention to repair or assist the computer or device experiencing the issue).
The use of online, computer-based support interactions allows a technical service agent to provide and manage customer service sessions with multiple users (e.g., concurrently or simultaneously). This provides the benefit of reducing the amount of time for a customer to wait without assistance in a queue, and reducing the amount of time for an agent to resolve simple problems. However, existing techniques do not provide an adequate mechanism to manage and evaluate the number of technical service agents used in a multi-customer environment, or fully allocate the resources used to assist customers on-demand.